


Lie Awake

by KuraiTsuky



Series: Current [1]
Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: After the Movie, Depression, John Blake Freeform, M/M, Not Happy, because it ended far too well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 06:57:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuraiTsuky/pseuds/KuraiTsuky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To John, winning hurt much more than loosing, because he was still alive, still alone with his guilt and his fear.<br/>And the memory of the man he loved and let go, god knows why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Aclarations of the timeline:
> 
> During the occupation, Bane kidnapped John and they fell in love.  
> The story is placed after the Gotham is "freed" by Batman.  
> Bane survives and escapes the city.  
> _ _ _ _
> 
> Because happy endings don't really work in real life.  
> Hope you like it.

 

After the bomb goes off over the bay everything is supposed to go back to normal. But it doesn’t. Those who can get out do so; he stays even though he doesn’t know why. When he looks at Gotham now he doesn’t see the city Batman died for, he doesn’t see the city he tried fight for, he only sees the skeleton of the place Bane conquered, the twisted remains of his legacy.

He tries to remember the day when Gotham was a bright dream he was willing to save, but he’s unable, he cannot dream anymore.

So he lies there thinking, night after night, day after day, trying to find the will to go on with his life, but he cannot. It’s like all his hope has been sucked from him, like half his heart died with his city and the other half left with the owner.

He wonders how different things would be if he’d left with Bane, if he’d be happy. He wouldn’t, he thinks, for he’d still be pinning for the great city that now, bitterly realizes, never truly existed. And with tears on his eyes he can only think that Bane was right about everything.

John closes his eyes refusing to cry. Such a hard task when every time he does so his mind takes him back to the sewers, to his Bane.

Making a titanic effort, he gets up, and drags himself through the empty streets, and he just like the city is but an empty shell. Sometimes when he looks at the broken structures that surround him is like someone else is looking, like his body is not his own and the terrible decisions that were the last nail on his coffin, weren’t his responsibility. Other times, when his flesh feels all too real, he wishes he was someone else and could hide from the world he’s failed and never come back. Some days he doesn’t have the strength even to get up and crawl through this Earth he’s come to hate so much, like the insignificant worm he thinks, he deserves to be.

So he spends his days lamenting his weakness, with his wings clipped and his heart rotting away on the other side of the world.

Until one day, when he musters the courage to get up, he finds his determination and loses his fear. Maybe because the life he’s been living is a nauseating lie, maybe because inside, without his dreams and illusions there’s nothing.

He puts all his things in a backpack, in the past that would’ve depress him but now is just another piece of information nobody cares about. Just like there’s no one to say goodbye when he leaves. Alone on the bridge, he looks back just one last time, feeling guilty, and enraged, but when those feelings pass and he’s empty once more, he almost feels grateful.

He searches, hearing rumors that transform into whispers, and then into legends that take him closer and closer. What he looks for, only he knows, what fuels him, that not even himself is aware. It’s like the last rattle of a consuming candle, that in the mountains he’s managed, somehow, to climb, trembles menacing with leaving him too.

John can barely breathe, behind his eyelids, Bane’s face imprinted looks at him with indifference, and it hurts, like anything else before. As he drags his numb limbs though the snow and the wind and the ice, John realizes he’s not going to make it, it should bother him, but he’s so tired…

In the middle of nowhere, his loneliness doesn’t seem so profound, his emptiness so important, and death is almost welcome. Falling to his knees, then face down on the snow, he lets go. There are no dreams, no pretty fantasies; he no longer has his anger or his masks, or his heart for that matter. Dizzy by the lack of oxygen John acknowledges the irony; Bane was indeed his bane after all. The candle is now just a pool of wax and the flame, was blown long ago.

He just hopes someone will find his corpse, his apology for the one person he shouldn’t have failed. The last thing he wishes for before closing his eyes and letting go, is to see Bane’s eyes one more time before the end.

 

When they find him, he’s almost frozen to death. They take him to what seems to be an old monastery, but he faints as soon as he’s past the front door. Sometime later, he wakens under the ever penetrating gaze of Bane.

His face inexpressive, the new mask even more menacing than the last. But his eyes are a storm of emotion. John sees him hesitate, so ignoring the pang of gilt on his chest, he takes one of the big hands and puts him closer, until he can encircle Bane’s thick shoulders on his arms and hold himself against his chest.

When he finaly feels the giant’s crush him he realizes he’s not happy, but at least now he can breathe.

And maybe one day the sun can shine again.

But till that day comes, he’s got his fire.


End file.
